The Boston police department is an outstanding police department, the FBI, homeland security, ATF, they're all working on this, the president is leading it, No, this is not a time for Democrat or Republican politics. I think the president is putting in place, putting in motion the counter-terrorism and anti-terrorism units we have in our country that have been developed over the last 11 1/2 years and they're going to do an outstanding job. I have no doubt of that whatsoever.

1. "Democrat" is not an adjective. "Democratic" is.

2. If the Boston Police Department did such a great job, then why does the GOP want to keep cutting budgets that would provide for more "outstanding police departments"?Oh, that's right. They're "union thugs." And King is a hypocrite.

Rachel Maddow poignantly addresses who exactly the people are who Republicans insist on firing, on laying off, on eliminating sources of steady work, on denying employment, income, and therefore health care and education opportunities. Those people for whom many on the right show such obvious disdain are public sector workers who have (or had) jobs as real as any private sector workers have (or had).

Yet the GOP has reveled in slashing "government workers" as if they are something less than, as if their jobs aren't really jobs at all, as if there is something inherently inferior about what they do to get by.

And by get by I mean feel secure, and by feel secure I mean also offer the rest of us a degree of security by way of the services they provide to this country.

But busting unions and privatizing America is the goal of those on the right. Their priority? Profits over people. Power. Livelihoods and economic "certainty" be damned. Oh, and of course, denying President Obama any victories ever at the risk of assuring him a legacy of *gasp!* success (too late).

An appreciation by Rachel Maddow:

"We have never cut government jobs when we were trying to save the economy. Until this time."

"Good luck, officer, see you around!"

"We lionize and celebrate the people who teach us our multiplication tables and fix our streets and keep us safe at night and rescue us from fires. We lionize and celebrate them justly as we should, and then in record numbers, we can them, [!] hurting them and hurting us as a country. Not every public sector worker's gonna win the Medal of Valor like those eighteen heroes did at the White House today.

"But there is reason to appreciate them, both in the heroic individual specific, and in the aggregate, for what they do for us every day."

The unemployment rate was effectively unchanged at 7.9%, and as is often the case, austerity measures undermined the employment landscape

— while America’s private sector added 166,000 jobs in December, the public sector lost 9,000 jobs. Indeed, over the last three months, the nation’s private sector added 624,000 jobs, while 24,000 government jobs were lost.

It’d be easy for Washington to improve the latter number and lower the unemployment rate, but congressional Republicans won’t allow it.

As I've previously written, check out public sector job numbers under both Bush and Obama. Somehow under W, rising public sector employment was okay with the GOP, but if the Dems want to hang on to those jobs, it’s some kind of Kenyan Marxist commie union thug plot to destroy America:

The GOP wants government to shrink, aka firing government workers. Which of course means firing employed people who bring home paychecks that are used to pay for things, which, in turn, boost the economy.

That would make President Obama look good, and Republicans can't have that.

If all those public sector workers had not lost their jobs, there would be over a million more people employed, which of course would bring the unemployment rate down substantially.

That said, check out this video and transcript, courtesy of Think Progress:

CARLY FIORINA: I think it’s important to remember, when we talk about the economy, that a private sector job and a public sector job are not the same things. They’re not equivalent. I’m not saying public sector jobs aren’t important. But a private sector job pays for itself. A private sector job creates other jobs. A public sector job is paid for by taxpayers. [...]

PAUL KRUGMAN: But when we say public sector jobs, it is not a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.

FIORINA: Oh, it is, actually.

KRUGMAN: When we talk about public sector jobs — when we look at the ones that have been lost in large numbers in this — it’s basically school teachers. Don’t think about bureaucrats. It’s school teachers. What we’ve laid off hundreds of thousands of school teachers.

And when we talk about the cuts in public spending that have happened, they are not, you know, some god awful who knows what. It’s actually public investment. It’s largely fixing potholes and repairing bridges.

So, you know, you have this image of these wasteful bureaucrats doing god knows what. What we’ve seen is an incredible drought of basic infrastructure, and laying off hundreds of thousands of school teachers.

FIORINA: It is a fact that virtually every department in every organization in Washington, D.C. has seen its budget increase for the last 40 years. That money is being paid to hire people. The number of people who are — of course there are some teachers…

KRUGMAN: The vast bulk of public sector employees are at the state and local level. They are largely school teachers plus police officers plus firefighters. And your notion that it’s all these bureaucrats — that’s a myth that’s used…

FIORINA: It’s not a myth, it’s a fact. It’s not a myth, it’s a fact. We don’t have enough private escort job creation.

For the first time since the recession began, the unemployment rate for adult women surpassed that for adult men, indicating that while the U.S. might have been a "mancession," it also appears to be experiencing a "mancovery."

The unemployment rate for women 20 years and older rose to 7.3% in December, from 7% the month before. Unemployment for men of the same age remained at 7.2% in December.

Guess why that is... I'll wait.

Times up. Here's why:

You know all those government jobs that have been cut? The ones that Republicans want to cut even more because they hate government so much? 13,000 government jobs were lost from November to December, and 68,000 since December 2011. Those jobs include teachers:

Women occupy about two-thirds of public sector jobs, according to Joan Entmacher, vice president for Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center. Women make up a large part of local government payrolls because they are a large proportion of the teachers in the country. The nation lost 53,900 local government education jobs in the last year.

So guess who's feeling the brunt of unemployment these days? That's right, the very women who educate our children. Hey, I used to be one of those!

Not only do women make less money than men, but this also happened:

Unemployment rose for single mothers, indicating that households headed by women could be especially vulnerable in the recovery.

5.1 million women, aged 20 and over, are still out of work. Those nice white GOP men on the Hill are salivating over the thought of slashing even more government jobs, which means more women will be jobless. Which means their families will suffer. Meaning their children. Which means they'll be more vulnerable. Which means they'll need more health care. Which they won't be able to afford.

How many of those nice white GOP men boast that they're big "pro life, family values" guys?